Pathetically Bad

REVEALED
I've found out, anyway, why critics of this blog who post here generally don't give their real names. When they do, it exposes their own work to scrutiny, which destroys anything they have to say.

THE FRAGILITY DEFENSE
When I present my case, the attitude which infects even myself, not to mention the other side, is that opponents are so feeble and defenseless that if I argue against their ideas and their art I'm picking on them.

Case in point: poet Christopher Salerno, Bennington MFA grad.

By naming him I'm singling him out, so I'll add that I use him only as a typical case. Others of his kind are worse. I hope I don't bruise him. He has a cozy teaching position, and is young enough anyway to find another career. I urge him to do so. Removing himself from the bubble of academe could only improve his work.

Much of his poetry is on-line. While examining it I thought, "He received an expensive MFA degree, studying for many years with the supposed best, to create this?"

He's learned little of the various forms and tricks of harmonious sound which bring joy to the art. Unlearned and unexpressed is the idea of poetry as language; musical magical language that when recited takes the poet and the audience to another plane.

With today's poets-- I use Christopher Salerno only as example-- after fifteen minutes of reading their work one is able to match it, if anyone'd want to. One could sit down and in an hour create ten times the amount, as pretentious and meaningless. The years of study at Bennington; the teaching of renowned instructors-- WHERE IS IT? What's being taught?
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Democracy XX

One part and the farthest
I awake next to the
refrigerator
On one hand and the other
hand
you prefer that I not sit
grappling with muddy boots.

Democracy XXVI

When you wake, when you
sit, when you cry,
Not sleeping,
crying
The painting is in the attic.

Democracy XXXII

Here, here is the
mud that you came for,
the tracks across
the kitchen floor
Here are the
tracks of your conscience
given form
weighed against the
scales of my labor
Your dark-eyed hangover
the literal interior mess
coming home from the bar.

Democracy XXXXVVIII

Here is the poetry
bad
poetry
worse than worst,
execrable poetry
I call it bad,
a nightmare of evasion
the twisted experience of too many
writing programs
dollars paid, receipt stamped
detestable fraud
the dead garbage can remains
with the unplucked festering
egg
coffee grounds mixed with decaying fish
foul smell, putrid mess
back alley behind the barn
fills with it
the smell of broken
lavoratories human stench classrooms
vomitories repositories of pretention
at Bennington
barge heaps towed down the Hudson
unwanted refuse
from all the bad poets
from all the preppy New England
green campus students
I call it charade, circus, scam,
You call it poetry.

(Disclaimer: these poems are inspired by, but are not actually written by, Mr. Salerno.)